Gallery: India's insane Suzuki factories

By the time you've read this story, this plant will have made 40 cars

Accidents, weirdly, don't worry him as much. He's got the spare capacity to cope with losing a few trucks, and, besides, Maruti Suzuki has got new strapping techniques. Cars used to be held in place by a single strap; if the truck had an ‘incident', the likelihood would be damage to its semi-precious cargo. Now, the vehicles have all four wheels ratchet-strapped to the truck, so that even if the lorry turns over, the cars are still preserved because they just hang there. Which is an odd way of making something positive out of a negative, but hey-ho.

Driving around in a Maruti Suzuki Alto 800, I can't say I share the transport bloke's easily worn Gallic shrug about the risk of accidents in India. Every single car has a dent of some description. And, as a European - in fact, scratch that... as a human being - it's difficult not to notice the crowds, the sheer number of people trying to get somewhere.